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Randy Taylor, Suspect In Alexis Murphy Disappearance, Is Person Of Interest In Another Disappearance

(Aug. 13, 2013) A 48-year-old man who was charged in connection with the disappearance of Virginia teenager Alexis Murphy is also a longtime person of interest in the disappearance of another teenage girl, authorities said.

According to Orange County commonwealth's attorney Diane Wheeler, Randy Taylor is the last person to have contact with Samantha Clarke, a 19-year-old who disappeared three years ago.

"The investigation is still continuing and he remains a person of interest to us," Wheeler told The Huffington Post.

Dee Rybiski, an FBI spokeswoman in Richmond, told HuffPost authorities are looking at a possible connection between the disappearances of Murphy and Clarke. "Any responsible law enforcement agency looks at every avenue," Rybiski said.

On Monday, authorities announced Taylor's arrest for abduction by force in connection with the disappearance of 17-year-old Murphy. He is being held without bond at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.

Murphy, a senior at Nelson County High School, has been missing since the evening of Aug. 3.

"She was supposed to be doing some back-to-school shopping in Lynchburg, but she never made it," Murphy's cousin, Tiffany Murphy, told The Huffington Post.

Alexis Murphy was active on Twitter and made her last tweet to her more than 13,000 followers at 6:40 p.m. She wrote: "I actually look cute right now."

Authorities with the Nelson County Sheriff's Office who are investigating Murphy's disappearance, said they have surveillance video from a Lovingston gas station that shows Murphy enter the station at about 7:15 that night. Taylor also was allegedly spotted in the video footage.

What happened to the teenager after that remains a mystery. The sheriff's office, the FBI and the Virginia State Police conducted ground and aerial searches for Murphy.

On the evening of Aug. 6, three days after her disappearance, Nelson police found Murphy's white 2003 Nissan Maxima abandoned in the parking lot of a movie theater in Albemarle County, just north of Charlottesville and about 39 miles from the Lovingston gas station.

The same day, authorities searched Taylor's Lovingston home, but whether they found anything related to the case remains unclear. The search warrant has been sealed under court order.

Nelson police said they have video footage of Taylor from Ultimate Bliss, an adult novelty store, taken the same day Murphy disappeared, but the timing on the video is unclear. The shop, police said, is just two miles from the movie theater where the car was found.

According to the News & Advance, Taylor has a lengthy criminal record that includes charges of assault, stalking, statutory burglary, grand larceny, arson and brandishing a firearm.

Taylor has never been charged in the disappearance of Clarke.

But Wheeler said Taylor knew Clarke and was in contact with the teen prior to her disappearance. "He was the person who last had contact with her ... He had multiple contacts with her in the days immediately preceding her disappearance," Wheeler told HuffPost.

Clarke, whose home is in Orange County neighboring Nelson County where Murphy lives, disappeared on Sept. 13, 2010. A recent graduate of Orange County High School, she told her then-13-year-old brother that she was going out for the evening. When she failed to return home the following day her mother reported her missing.

Unlike Clarke, Murphy, who was scheduled to begin school on Monday, has no known ties to Taylor.

"She is a senior in high school. She has a full scholarship for volleyball and is planning to go to college. She's a good kid and has never been in trouble with the law," Tiffany Murphy said.

Alexis Murphy is described as an African American female, 5-foot-7, weighing 156 pounds. She was last seen wearing a pink blouse, floral spandex pants and brown boots. She was carrying a gray purse.

"We hope she's still alive. That's what we're praying for. Not knowing is the worst. It's horrible. You hear about this stuff on TV, but you never think that it could be someone you know. I just hope they find her soon," Tiffany Murphy said.

Anyone with information concerning the whereabouts of Alexis Murphy should contact the Nelson County Sheriff's Office at (434) 263-7050.

(CBS/AP) CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - The man accused of abducting Virginia teenager Alexis Murphy was with her the night she vanished, but his lawyer says he didn't have anything to do with the disappearance -- rather, it may be connected to a drug deal.

Hallahan alleged that Taylor ran into the 17-year-old at a gas station Aug. 3, the day she disappeared,*CBS affiliate WTVR reports, and that Taylor asked the teen if she could find him a drug dealer. It wasn't the first encounter between the two, the lawyer alleged - nearly a month before, while Taylor was working at a local carwash, he says Murphy started talking to Taylor after she noticed he was smoking marijuana.

The night Murphy vanished, Hallahan said the 17-year-old was at Taylor's camper with another man. The lawyer said Taylor bought marijuana from the man and smoked it with him, and that the two left in separate cars.

After finding a strand of Murphy's hair in Taylor's camper eight days after she was last seen, authorities arrested him on an abduction charge, Hallahan said. Taylor is being held without bond in Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail and faces a maximum 10-year prison sentence if convicted.

Taylor was investigated as a person of interest in the case of Virginia teen Samantha Clarke, who vanished three years ago in Orange County, about an hour and a half away. He was never charged in that case. A prosecutor told WTVR that Taylor was one of several people Clarke had contact with before her disappearance.

Thank you for starting this thread! This is a "local" girl and there's been a lot of coverage here since she disappeared but only recently has been in the natl. news. They found a hair of hers in his camper; he is saying she was there as part of a drug deal. He was also suspected in another missing girl case 3 years ago but never charged.

Alexis is kind of a black version of Hannah Anderson, very pretty teenager who spent a lot of time on the internet, on ask.fm and Twitter, posting selfies etc. Her Twitter is https://twitter.com/RealFolarin_

Thank you for starting this thread! This is a "local" girl and there's been a lot of coverage here since she disappeared but only recently has been in the natl. news. They found a hair of hers in his camper; he is saying she was there as part of a drug deal. He was also suspected in another missing girl case 3 years ago but never charged.

I knew about the Samantha Clarke case but just found this article about several other missing girls. Interesting.

(Aug. 14, 2013) As investigators continue to search for 17-year-old Alexis Murphy, they're reminded of other young people who have disappeared along Route 29 and whose abductors have never been found.

In addition to Murphy's disappearance near Lovingston, Dashad 'Sage' Smith disappeared from Charlottesville in 2012; Samantha Clarke from Orange in 2010; Morgan Harrington from Charlottesville in 2009 and Alicia Showalter Reynolds and Anne Carolyn McDaniel from the Culpeper area in 1996.

The Reynolds and McDaniel cases took place at the time of the Route 29 stalker attacks, a period when more than a dozen women driving along Route 29 reported being stopped by a man who flagged them down.

All of them got away except Reynolds, whose remains were found a few miles off the highway.

Orange County prosecutor Diana Wheeler is one of many members of the legal community hoping Murphy's disappearance jogs the memories of people who live in this mostly rural area, particularly with a suspect, 48-year-old Randy Taylor, now behind bars, charged with abducting Alexis Murphy.

He's also been a person of interest in Samantha Clark's disappearance since well before his recent arrest.

While investigators won't say if he's connected to any of the other unsolved abductions, they will say they're taking a fresh look at all of these cases dating back nearly 20 years, trying to close the cases for justice and the victims' families.

"It's an open wound for them and they still grieve a great deal because there's no knowing what happened," Wheeler says.

In addition to Murphy's disappearance near Lovingston, Dashad 'Sage' Smith disappeared from Charlottesville in 2012; Samantha Clarke from Orange in 2010; Morgan Harrington from Charlottesville in 2009 and Alicia Showalter Reynolds and Anne Carolyn McDaniel from the Culpeper area in 1996.

Doubtful that he's connected w/Morgan Harrington either. She was from Roanoke, her father is a psychiatrist and dean of the medical school here (Dan Harrington.) Morgan was a junior at Virginia Tech and disappeared from a Metallica concert in Charlottesville in 2009. Her body was found in a hayfield 10 miles away, 3 months after she disappeared, by a farmer checking his fences. It was very remote, over a mile from the nearest road. She had been raped and several bones were broken. DNA at the scene matched DNA from a rape in Fairfax, VA in 2005...that suspect was described as an african-american male by witnesses. He has never been caught.

A Lovingston man being held in the alleged abduction of Alexis Tiara Murphy, a Nelson County teenager missing for nearly two weeks, is scheduled to undergo a bail hearing next week that could reveal new information about evidence in the puzzling case.

Randy Allen Taylor, 48, is scheduled to appear at 1 p.m. Thursday, according to a clerk with the Nelson Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court.

A drifter with a criminal record who was a person of interest in a missing teenager case three years ago, Taylor has been held without bail since his arrest Sunday.

Orange County Commonwealth's Attorney Diana Wheeler said in a telephone interview that Taylor has long been a "person of interest" in the September 2010 disappearance of Samantha Clarke, 19. However, authorities never obtained enough evidence to make an arrest. Clarke remains missing.

"We've always been interested in Mr. Taylor and trying to follow up on every little lead," Wheeler said. She recalled an investigator telling her that Taylor had been linked to Murphy's disappearance. "My first thought was, 'I knew it!' That was my gut feeling," Wheeler said.

Taylor's lawyer, Hallahan, said the meeting inside the rickety-looking trailer occurred the evening of Murphy's disappearance and involved a third person from whom Taylor admits buying marijuana for $60. Hallahan did not provide a specific time but told reporters with The Daily Progress of Charlottesville that Murphy and the other individual left the trailer together in separate cars after the drug purchase. He described the drug dealer as the last person Taylor saw with Murphy and denied any subsequent encounter that day. Hallahan said the drug dealer is a black man in his 20s with his hair in cornrows who was driving a 1990s sedan with 22-inch rims.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released images of Murphy at a Liberty gas station near Lovingston about 7:15 p.m. Aug. 3. Taylor also was seen at the station that day, according to the FBI. Hallahan said Taylor had talked with Murphy some days prior to Aug. 3 and that Murphy had asked about finding a drug dealer.

Two hours before Murphy was filmed at the gas station, Taylor was buying pornographic videos in Charlottesville, according to news reports. When Murphy left home the evening of Aug. 3, she told her family she was going to Lynchburg to buy hair extensions in anticipation of her senior portrait.

Hallahan told reporters that Taylor is innocent. He said Taylor is being held on the slimmest of grounds, a hair of Murphy's discovered inside the trailer, and that the hearing next week could force the disclosure of additional evidence.

Taylor made similar claims about other individuals being the last people in the company of an Orange County woman who has been missing since September 2010. Taylor made several calls to Samantha Clarke the night she disappeared but has said that the calls were intended to warn her away from people who may have wanted to do her harm. Clarke was 19 at the time.

No arrests have been made in that case.

So that's the guy's story (this time)...'Y'all need to be lookin for a black dude with cornrows. Yeah, that's the ticket.' Right...

Her mom was all over the local news the day he came out with the 'drug deal' story, saying "Oh no, my daughter never smoked pot, I never smelled it on her breath, never saw her high, no no no...I would have known if she was doing something like that." When all you had to do was look at Alexis's Twitter feed, from 2 days before her disappearance:

Another case of a parent not having a clue what their kid is up to (I know mine didn't!)

NOT that I believe this dirtball's story, not for a second...it's no coincidence that he was one of the last people to see both these girls before they disappeared. I really hope the cops/attorneys get him this time.

Mom and Auntie are selling T-shirts w/her face and "Find Alexis" on them. They've also set up a website to collect donations, for what expenses I'm not sure...

I've been waiting for this thread too. Too lazy to do it myself. Man, that's bad...

Haha, me too.. (TH is the bomb.)

Were you in Blacksburg in 2009-2010 when the Morgan Harrington thing was happening? I was living waaayyy out in the country (Wytheville) at the time so didn't follow it quite as closely as I might have.

The latest is that her parents are suing the arena where the Metallica concert was held for several million dollars. They claim it was the arena's policy of not allowing readmittance if you left the building during the concert that led to Morgan's abduction...she was seen that night by several witnesses wandering around outside the arena, looking inebriated during the concert (her friends say she was looking for a bathroom.) She called them on her cellphone saying she couldn't get back in and not to worry, she'd catch a ride home. She was last seen hitchhiking along the road at around 10 pm, and that was it...

Were you in Blacksburg in 2009-2010 when the Morgan Harrington thing was happening? I was living waaayyy out in the country (Wytheville) at the time so didn't follow it quite as closely as I might have.

The latest is that her parents are suing the arena where the Metallica concert was held for several million dollars, saying it was their policy of not allowing readmittance if you left the building during the concert that led to Morgan's abduction...she was seen that night by several witnesses wandering around outside the arena, looking inebriated. She called her friends who were still inside on her cellphone telling them she couldn't get back in and not to worry, she'd catch a ride home. She was last seen hitchhiking along the road and that was it...

I remember that case pretty well. Her mother said she had lovely bones after they found her remains

I want something good to die for, to make it beautiful to live.~Queens of the Stone Age

Doubtful that he's connected w/Morgan Harrington either. She was from Roanoke, her father is a psychiatrist and dean of the medical school here (Dan Harrington.) Morgan was a junior at Virginia Tech and disappeared from a Metallica concert in Charlottesville in 2009. Her body was found in a hayfield 10 miles away, 3 months after she disappeared, by a farmer checking his fences. It was very remote, over a mile from the nearest road. She had been raped and several bones were broken. DNA at the scene matched DNA from a rape in Fairfax, VA in 2005...that suspect was described as an african-american male by witnesses. He has never been caught.

I remember the Morgan Harrington case now. I knew I recognized the name!

Originally Posted by *crickets*

So that's the guy's story (this time)...'Y'all need to be lookin for a black dude with cornrows. Yeah, that's the ticket.' Right...

Her mom was all over the local news the day he came out with the 'drug deal' story, saying "Oh no, my daughter never smoked pot, I never smelled it on her breath, never saw her high, no no no...I would have known if she was doing something like that." When all you had to do was look at Alexis's Twitter feed, from 2 days before her disappearance:

Another case of a parent not having a clue what their kid is up to (I know mine didn't!)

My parents always thought I was up to something 1,000 times worse than I ever was. If something terrible had happened to me when I was a teenager, and someone suggested I was smoking pot, they probably would have said, "Smoking pot? She was worshiping Satan and mainlining heroin, THAT'S what she was doing!" Bwahahahaaa.

Yup. Been here from 1973-1995...graduated college, moved to Atlanta and sang for a band and when I realized THAT wasn't going to pay the bills I came back in 2001 and went to grad school. Landed a job...decided I truly did love the mountains

I remember that case pretty well. Her mother said she had lovely bones after they found her remains

Lovely bones?!?!? What!?!? That is weird...anyways, I remember ID had an episode of "Disappeared" on Morgan. Every time I think of it, the first thing that pops into my head is a girl walking down a highway in the dark (from the show). So sad. I haven't watched that show in a long time (not sure if they are still making new ones) but I've seen quite a few that I recognized from threads here.

Originally Posted by marakisses

yes i said i will leave it under you storage he said cuddle with me i said shut up it over??? what am i doing wrong??

Here is the 'lovely bones' quote, from an interview the parents did on the Today Show 3 days after Morgan's skeleton was discovered. Her mother said "I have reviewed images of my daughter from her prenatal ultrasounds to looking at her empty eye sockets of her cranium. Yes, I have seen lovely bones. Lovely girl."

She had insisted on seeing the remains to get closure or something. 'Lovely Bones' is a book that was written about another murdered child.

Here is the 'lovely bones' quote, from an interview the parents did on the Today Show 3 days after Morgan's skeleton was discovered. Her mother said ?I have reviewed images of my daughter from her prenatal ultrasounds to looking at her empty eye sockets of her cranium. Yes, I have seen lovely bones. Lovely girl.?

She had insisted on seeing the remains to get closure or something. 'Lovely Bones' is a book that was written about another murdered child.

She sounded heart broken when she said that. I wouldn't want the last mental picture of my daughter being her skeleton.

I saw the movie 'Lovely Bones' and cried throughout the entire thing. I was disappointed the family never got the closure they deserved.

I want something good to die for, to make it beautiful to live.~Queens of the Stone Age

(Sept. 3, 2013) The FBI confirmed this morning that a cell phone belonging to missing Nelson County teenager Alexis Murphy was located during searches associated with her disappearance.

Murphy, 17, was reported missing Aug. 3, after she was believed to have left her Shipman area home for a shopping trip to Lynchburg.

The FBI would not say where the phone or how many other phones have been located.

Searchers last week recovered a sweater-like shirt from a creek below a bridge in the Shipman area, according to news reports.

However, Nelson County investigator Billy Mays told the Lynchburg News & Advance on Tuesday that the sweater did not belong to Murphy. He declined to go into further detail.

The FBI said it would release no more information about the case, which has resulted in the arrest of Randy Allen Taylor on an abduction charge. A key search area is near Taylor?s home north of Lovingston, just off U.S. 29.

Coordinated, large-scale foot searches for Murphy did not begin until recent days. Her car was found in Charlottesville and surveillance footage captured her image at a gas station in Lovingston the day of her disappearance; Taylor was also visible in that location that day but not in Murphy?s presence.

A lawyer for Taylor, 48, has said that Murphy and Taylor were together at his home but that Taylor, who was arranging a drug deal, was not the last person with Murphy. The attorney has not said whether Taylor informed investigators about the meeting with Murphy and another man before his arrest Aug. 11.

The cellphone of missing Nelson County teenager Alexis Murphy has been found, the FBI announced Tuesday.

Alexis' family has said her white iPhone 4 was like her lifeline. Family members joked about how she would fall asleep with the phone in her hand. "It just really verifies what we already knew. She did not leave of her own accord," said Trina Murphy, Alexis' great-aunt, on Tuesday. "We have mixed emotions about it."

Sgt. Kevin Davis, of the Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, said Alexis' heavy phone use should prove helpful. "If she's a typical youth where her phone is her lifeline, that will reveal a lot," said Davis, who is not directly involved in the case. "More than likely, they'll be able to get a lot of useful information off of her cellphone."

Murphy said Tuesday the FBI took several phones to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, though investigators have not revealed to the family where Alexis' phone was found. "They're being specifically tight-lipped about that," she said.

Davis said different features on a cellphone, especially pictures, can help investigators build a timeline. Some phones, particularly smart phones, have a feature called geotagging. Geotagging will embed coordinates of where a photograph was taken within that image. "It's information that gets attached to pictures," Davis said. "Geotagging is probably the biggest piece of information."

Alexis' call and text message history should reveal whom she was in touch with before her disappearance. However, Davis said, Alexis' phone may not point directly to the missing teen's whereabouts. "It kind of is just like interviewing another witness," he said. "The witness can only give investigators new leads."

Investigators had asked for the public's help in finding Alexis' phone. The FBI did not specify Tuesday where or when the phone was found, only saying it was one of "several phones" recovered during the course of this investigation.

In an FBI news release Tuesday morning, authorities said "absolutely no further information" will be released aside from the positive identification of Alexis' phone.

"This sole release of information is only being made to advise the public that we no longer need assistance looking for that one item," the FBI said.

They won't say when or where the phone was found, but there were teams searching in the area of this Taylor guy's home and the river over the weekend.

I hate to be a pessimist but I think the best we can hope for is they have enough on the guy to force him to give up where her body is. I would love to be wrong though!

A grand jury has indicted Randy Allen Taylor, 48, on the offenses of first-degree murder of Alexis Murphy, murder during commission of abduction and abduction with intent to defile.

Martin, accompanied by the Murphy family, announced the new charges outside the Nelson County Sheriff's Office during a news conference. Taylor is scheduled to appear at 3 p.m. in Nelson County Circuit Court where Martin said he will be served with the new charges. He is facing a jury trial Feb. 3 on a charge of abduction in connection to the Murphy case; Martin said at an October hearing he plans to call approximately 50 witnesses.

Martin said there is probable cause for the new charges but didn't address the evidence any further at today's news conference.

"The return of indictments only means that the Grand Jury found that probable cause exists for the charges I mentioned and that Randy Taylor should go on trial for those charges," Martisaidn. "The defendant is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Virginia State Police have also investigated Murphy's disappearance. Authorities have been tight-lipped about the case, sealing search warrants and affidavits and a bond hearing for Taylor in which specifics were shared was closed to the public in August.

Martin has said those steps are to ensure that a fair and impartial jury trial for Taylor takes place in Nelson County. Judge J. Michael Gamble last month approved Martin's request for a gag order to keep parties close to the case from divulging information as the trial nears.

She sounded heart broken when she said that. I wouldn't want the last mental picture of my daughter being her skeleton.

I saw the movie 'Lovely Bones' and cried throughout the entire thing. I was disappointed the family never got the closure they deserved.

Read the book. It's even more heartbreaking.

Suzanne Knight (21) brutally raped and devoured 3 toddlers while on a meth binge before hanging herself Marky69: If those toddlers didnt want to be eaten then they shouldnt of looked so god damned delicious. RIP Suzanne

LOVINGSTON -- A massive search for evidence and for a body in the disappearance and alleged murder of Nelson County teenager Alexis Murphy has had widely divergent results.

There is a mountain of circumstantial evidence. There is no body.

In opening arguments Friday in the murder trial of Randy Allen Taylor, the man charged in Murphy's death, Nelson County Commonwealth's Attorney Anthony Martin revealed to jurors that investigators discovered ominous signs that the 17-year-old may have suffered harm inside Taylor?s tiny camping trailer off U.S. 29.

And a parade of early witnesses helped fill in gaps about Taylor?s whereabouts in the days and hours after a security video captured an image of a brief encounter between the two at a Lovingston gas station the evening Murphy disappeared: Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013.

In a video played to jurors, Taylor, 48, a tattooed man with a skeletal build and a military-style haircut, opens a door for Murphy at the Liberty gas station in Lovingston. Minutes later, according to testimony from a clerk, Murphy chatted briefly with Taylor, approaching the driver's side window of his camouflage-motif SUV in the parking lot.

Taylor was a mainstay at the gas station, clerks testified. One said he liked to hang around the parking lot watching the high school girls who frequent the area. She said he would sit in his familiar SUV for hours at a time, just staring.

The day after the videotaped meeting with Murphy, on Sunday about 10 p.m., surveillance video played to jurors shows a man parking Murphy's car in a Carmike theater parking lot north of Charlottesville. The man driving the Nissan was not visible enough to be identified. The lot is not far from where Taylor had bought two pornographic videos the previous afternoon, a clerk testified, describing Taylor as an occasional customer.

Other witnesses pointed to Taylor as the man who walked into an Applebee's restaurant within walking distance of the theater that night, tossed down a few beers, and then called a cab to take him to Lovingston. The trip cost $35, the cabbie testified.

The agent described how on Aug. 6, as she and other agents combed through the camping trailer, she turned up a jagged piece of fingernail and a long black hair that DNA tests showed belonged to Murphy.

Another search the next day turned up a bloody shirt under the couch. Wrapped inside were bloody hair extensions and part of a false eyelash. The shirt was the one Taylor was wearing at the gas station when he met Murphy; DNA tests showed the blood and hair extensions had come from Murphy.

Murphy's smashed cellphone was later found on the property not far from the trailer.

The evidence collected by dozens of investigators helped lead to Taylor's arrest Aug. 11 on abduction charges. Thursday, he pleaded not guilty to murder and two abduction charges.

But there is no body, no evidence of how Murphy may have died, and no evidence of where she was when she was killed.

In the courtroom, Taylor presents an immovable, glassy-eyed presence and an easy target for the baleful stares from more than a dozen family members and supporters of Murphy, including Gil Harrington. She is the mother of slain Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, whose body was discovered off U.S. 29 near the Nelson County border in January 2010. No arrests were ever made in that case.

Wow...I had no idea that much blood/DNA etc...were In dude's possession. I always thought it was a strand of hair and the surveillance video

I had no idea either- they (the state atty) got a gag order awhile back to stop any leaks to the press about their evidence. I just hope it's enough for the jury to convict this scumbag. The defense is saying the evidence shows a struggle but that doesn't prove murder. Proving murder beyond a reasonable doubt without a body is notoriously difficult.

I think it should be enough. Even with no body, all that blood in his trailer that was hers, her hair, fingernail....her cell phone....seems pretty obvious to me, unless he wants to claim he was framed.

Originally Posted by marakisses

yes i said i will leave it under you storage he said cuddle with me i said shut up it over??? what am i doing wrong??

I think it should be enough. Even with no body, all that blood in his trailer that was hers, her hair, fingernail....her cell phone....seems pretty obvious to me, unless he wants to claim he was framed.